The Gisborne Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. MONDAY, APRIL. 20, 1903.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2169, 20 April 1908, Page 2

The Gisborne Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. MONDAY, APRIL. 20, 1903.

MR. COGHLAN AND THE TIMES. Probably none of tho representatives who have been sent to London to thero represent somo portion of Australasia have accomplished more usefid work than tho well-known New South Wales statistician]- Mr. T. A. Coghlan, who now represents that Stato in tho capacity of Agent-Gene-ral. In a recent issue of tho London “Times” there is evidence of a very real sorvico done to Australia .by Mr. Coghlan, and it .quito likely that tho benefit may indirectly ensue to Now Zealand also. During the last few months tho “Times” has several times criticised with some severity tho laws in force in Australia.to control tho immigraton of aliens. It has always been admitted in these articles that tho Imperial Government has parted almost completely with tho right to veto any legislation of the self-govern-ing States, end the “Times” has claimed the desire and tho ability to understand the colonial point of view. But the admission has always been mado with certain reservations, and tho attempt to see with Australian eyes has been only partially successful. The “Times” has insisted that the colonial policy is against tho interests of tho Empire in general and of colonials in particular. Australians are told that they have put obstacles in tho way of their own economic progress, have hindered tho diplomatic arrangements of the Imperial Government, and have revealed an inadequate 6enso of the obligations due to their fellow-subjects. It is not suggested that the powers of tho Crown which exist in law shall bo revived in fact. They have been allowed to fall into disuse, it is suggested, chiefly for want of any consistent colonial policy or any statesman to make it. Nevertheless it is insisted that tho means of controlling colonial legislation have not been exhausted. The colonies that are most emphatic in the assertion of their right to bo white countries are those which depend most absolutely on the protection of tho Mother Country. Australia could not at present of its own strength for six months exclude an enemy that had once decided itwas worth aii invading expedition. Why, then, the “Times” asks, shall England bo content with verbal protests when she is ultimately responsible for any high-handed action that Anstraia may take and sinco she is expected to shield Australia from tho natural consequences of her acts? Mr. Coghlan’s answer to theso questions is an instance of the work that a High Commissioner should ho qualified to do. Tho outbreak simultaneously of riots in California and British Columbia, tho scheme lor registration of Asiatics in Natal and tho Transvaal, and tho schemes for the development of tho Northern Territory have almost persuaded people in the United Kingdom that the difficulties of tho case are new. Mr. Coghlan shows in a long article in the “Times” that though tho discussion has taken a new form and has become more urgent as the means of communication have become more perfect, it is in its nature as old as our earliest settlements. Before tho first gold rush there were people just as anxious to grow rich in a hurry as their successors are now.' They proposed to import colored labor from tho Pacific Islands in order to avoid paying an exorbitant wage, which was what they woro pleased to call payments only slightly in advance of those customary in Great Britain. When their plan failed, owing to the incapacity of

tho Islanders to act as shepherds, thoy indeed for hill coolios from India, and wore again doloated through tho intervention of Lord Stanley, then Secretary of State. There were at. that time, as there have boon ever since, a number of moil who objected to all immigration, and, indeed, to all competition. As was natural tho party opposod to tho importation of colorod labor was accused then, as tho Australian people has been since, of being animated by tho sumo short-siglitod mid selfish views. But tho objections hold by tho loaders of tho popular party wore based on considerations at onco othical and economic. Thoy objected to tho existence in their midst of a class condemned to an inferior kind of labor, and without a hope of over sharing in tho life of tho community, because they believed its presence to bo dangorous both to rulers and subjects. Thoy thought it undcsirablo that manual labor should como to bo regarded as fit only for slaves, or that in defiance of tho teaching of history ono class of men should bo sot at the niorey of another. Tho samo considerations wore reinforced when Sir Henry Parkcs dealt with tho Chineso as thoy had been in Victoria at tho time of tho gold rushes. Tlioro wore the same parties then as tlioro have been before and since—the men who could gather no warning from history or observation, and who bolioved that nothing was so important as tho immediate accumulaton of wealth; their opponents in interest, hut their follows in narrowness of outlook, whose only concern was that their comfortable existence should not ho disturbed ;and the third class who actod on tho belief that to allow tho presenco in Australia of colored immigrants would ho to betray tho trust which they held for tho \fdiito races. Air. Coghlan, after tracing the history of tho movement, shows that it is by no means clear that if tho Japanese were allowed to enter as they pleased they would ho able to do work for which Australians aro unfit. The contention that the kanakas were capable of doing tlie hardest work in tho canefields because of their climate is disproved by their death-rate of 24 per 1000—double that of Europeans in tho same latitude — and tlie Japanese have a. climate far colder than that of any of tlie Australian capitals. Air. Coghlan shows, too, that the Chinese do not as a rule add to the wealth of a country. The strongest objection to their presenco is that they tend to drag a higher standard of living down to their own. Another is that they are not colonists. They follow behind tho pioneer; they work where ho has made a way, and thoy send whatever wealth they collect out of tho country.

It was well worth Air. Coghlan’s while to state these causes of dissatisfaction, because they influence at present all tho colonies whoso policy the “Times” has criticised. The New South Wales Agent-General would not have found it difficult to show that by safeguarding the civilisation inherited by them they were doing the best service to tho British Empire as well as to their own corner of it. There can*be no doubt that- unless the right were recognised of each member of tho confederation to act on such dogmas as'these the Empire could no longer continue in its present form.